“We took two steps forward and ten steps backward.” A look at women’s rights in the global community

BY JONELL PANTLITZ

Are you recognized as a woman? Have you faced discrimination because of your gender? In the spirit of the recent International Women’s Day, it is necessary to shed light on us as women.

International Women’s Day is celebrated on March 8^th every year around the world. It is a focal point in the movement for women’s rights. After the Socialist Party of America organized a Women’s Day in New York City on February 28^th, 1909, German delegates Clara Zetkin, Käte Duncker and others proposed at the 1910 International Socialist Women’s Conference that “A special Women’s Day” be organized annually.

After women gained suffrage in Soviet Russia in 1917, March 8^th became a national holiday there. The socialist movement and communist countries then predominantly celebrated the day until the feminist movement in about 1967 adopted it. The United Nations then began celebrating the day in 1977.

Considering that women’s legal rights have also increased significantly since the mid-nineteenth century. Changes in the law pertaining to women both reflect and foster changes in gender relations. There have been a number of changes in laws affecting women: from giving women full property rights, being deprived of the right to choose, refuse marriage partners, or end a marriage, and whether they could dress as they liked.

A number of these concerns and others continued to be problems for women in the centuries that followed. They included a lack of custodial rights over children, especially after a divorce as well as the inability of women to own property, run businesses, and control their own wages, income, and wealth. Women in the ancient, classical, and medieval world also faced employment discrimination, barriers to education, a lack of voting rights, and the inability to represent themselves in lawsuits and court actions.

Nevertheless, we have moved away from that particular decade and women are currently advocating for their rights. All the same, the struggle for equality hasn’t ended. Worldwide, women face employment discrimination and barriers to healthcare every day.

With all the work of powerful women such as: Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, Ida B. Wells,  Frida Kahlo, Simone de Beauvoir, Yuri Kochiyama, Dolores Huerta, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Gloria Steinem, and Audre Lorde,  who fought for women’s rights and gender equality, we would assume that it would have been enough to have an equal and fair society.

This is why gender gap is a real and prominent issue in our society. According to Pew Research Centre, 37% of women who say their workplace are mostly male report they have been treated as if they were not competent because of their gender. A third of the women who work in majority-male establishments, 35% say they have earned less than a man who was doing the same job.

New studies have now shown 83 countries have improved women’s economic rights from 2016 to 2018. Despite these improvements worldwide, during the same period, 54 countries imposed greater restrictions on women’s economic rights. For instance, currently, 37 countries restrict the ability of married women to obtain passports, and 17 restrict their ability to simply travel outside their home. When women, are restricted from owning property, or starting a business, everyone is robbed of the value that could have been created if they had been allowed to share their talents and ideas with the world.

According to Rosemarie Fike, “In countries where men and women enjoy the same economic rights, women live longer, healthier lives while also benefiting society by increasing economic activity and prosperity.” 

Yet, 13 countries have also restricted a woman’s right to own property, and 39 countries restrict their ability to inherit property. In five countries: Cameroon, Chad, Gabon, Guinea-Bissau and Niger there are even restrictions on a woman’s ability to open a bank account.

This International Women’s Day, let’s take meaningful steps to improve the lives of women and girls everywhere by encouraging equal access to the institutions that help protect economic rights and allow women worldwide the ability to make their own economic decisions.